


Fix-it-fic

by Kitty September (KittyAug)



Series: Kitty's SPN Femslash Bingo [14]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F, Fanfiction, Fix-It, Gen, In-Universe Supernatural Fanfiction, In-Universe Supernatural Novels, Pre-Slash, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-27 23:58:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5069926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittyAug/pseuds/Kitty%20September
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie hefts her bag up onto her shoulder, checks her jar of magic sand is safe and sound in her pocket, and starts to make her way out of the hotel. Time travel, get back to US soil and go meet Jo Harvelle. Talk about a self-insert fix-it fic! How hard can it be?</p><p><a href="http://kittyaugust.tumblr.com/post/129901548641/kitty-spnbingo">SPN Femslash Bingo:</a> Time Travel AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fix-it-fic

There are a lot of things you learn to put up with when you’re a girl and a geek at the same time. Luckily, Charlie has a very specific skill set. To quote the late, great Wolverine: Charlie is the best there is at what she does, but what she does best isn't very nice. Which basically means it didn’t turn out so well for the last guy that sent her rape threats because he didn’t like her opinion on the importance of Batwoman to human civilisation. Unfortunately, unlike DC-douchbag, there are a lot of things about a geek-girl’s life that can’t be fixed so easily, no matter how good she is at what she does. Not even with a shipment of stolen Sun Microsystems hardware and a well timed tip off to the cops.

Like fangirls everywhere, Charlie has got used to a lot of sucky things about modern media. Not the least of which being her favorite female characters getting fridged all the damn time! The thing is, as a female fan, you get used to this stuff. For most people the most you can do about it is keep a well curated collection of ‘Fix-it Fics’ and ‘Everybody Lives AU’ fanfiction on AO3. Charlie isn’t most people.

Charlie sighs, leans back in her uncomfortable hotel chair and gives the book yet another considering look. It isn’t the book she’s been looking for, although it does mention the Book of the Damned in the marginalia and that’s almost a lead. This is another big bad magical book, it’s close, but not what she needs. Or, to be more precise, not what she needs to save Dean.

When Charlie first found the Carver Edlund books online, it was easy to forget that they were a little more than fiction. They were pretty trash-tastic and it was easy to get caught up in the story and the melodrama, and forget that Dean and Sam and all the other long dead people in those books really went through hell. Literally in some cases.

It turns out that ancient tomes of magical knowledge are surprisingly common, and the more old monasteries and dusty old university collections you visit (or break into) the more weird and interesting things you discover. Even if every discovery does come at the price of yet another frustrating dead end in relation to the Mark of Cain.

If she’s honest with herself, then Charlie will admit that Jo and Ellen Harvelle were not the first people she thought of when she first started translating this particular spell. But, like all magic that Charlie has seen so far, it has strict rules and a strict price.

Charlie is starting to realize that real life magic is a lot more Hellblazer and far less Harry Potter. That isn’t as totally bad as it sounds. Like, it’s gross and messy -- but magic is basically a highly symbolic and occasionally visceral form of chemistry, when you get right down it it. That’s something she can work with. If she chooses to.

Take the spell she is currently more than seriously contemplating, for example. It has to be cast on the first new moon after the Spring Equinox, which would be tonight. It requires something personal to power it, something she never thought she would give up. Her mom’s wedding ring sits on the table next to the book. She will have as long as she wants to do what needs to be done, as long as she obeys the spell’s rules, but any time she spends in the past will also have passed here, when she returns. Luckily, it seems like her position will remain relative to the Earth. Or, more specifically, the grave dirt, church stone and tidal sand in the bottle that also forms part of the spell. She can travel backward in time but she will stay in this location in relation to the planet, and she will return to this location too - no matter how far she travels while in the past, which is super interesting. And luckily for Charlie it was interesting enough that some Gaelic witch back in the 1800s actually did some experimentation and, like a surprisingly large number of witches over the years, she made notes in the margins.

It doesn’t escape Charlie’s notice, or amusement, that she is going to have to make her way from Carthage, Tunisia to Carthage, Missouri. Maybe that’s the reason she even thought of this in the first place. Maybe it's just narrative symmetry.

Charlie takes a sip of her whiskey and looks over the collection of things on the table one last time. Cash, lots of cash. Both, Euros and USD. Even more illegally obtained than usual - it’s actually kind of hard to come by old bank notes, at least in these quantities. Her laptop, her bag packed with a few clothes, the spell ingredients. Everything else she’ll deal with when she gets there. If she gets there.

Charlie grabs the hotel phone and dials 9 for the front desk. A rush of movement to hide her nerves, even if she is the only person there.

“Good evening, Lysa speaking, how may I help?”

“Um, hi,” Charlie says, after realising she left too long a pause. “I might need to stay on a bit longer, say a month, can you arrange that?”

“Certainly, Ms Pratchett,” the Concierge sounds surprised but not overwhelmed by the request. “Will the booking be going on the card we have on file? Or would you prefer an alternative means of payment?”

“No, no, the card is fine.” It’ll last another month or two, easy.

“Is there anything else we can help you with this evening, Ma’am?”

“No, that’s all. Um, thanks.”

Charlie hangs up before she can start rambling at the woman about how she’s about to do the second stupidest thing she’s ever done. All in the name of, what, girl power? Some kind of sentiment? Who knows.

If her calculations are correct she has two ways back. One, if she breaks the bottle of dirt and sand that controls the spell. Two, if she sees, even for a moment, anyone who has already crossed her timeline. She knows she can’t change history, either. Anything that has happened, has happened. So, if she knows about it, she can’t change it. She’s been over, and over, the post-publication post-apocalyptic Supernatural books, and she’s even got a printed copy of Abandon All Hope… not sure what good it’ll do her, but she’s got it. She knows exactly what the official line is and this should almost work.

Right, so, it’s now or never. She finishes her drink, grimacing as it burns her throat.

The spell itself isn’t that complicated, not now she’s got all the bits. Now she just has to paint a fancy widget on the back of a door, say a few words in Greek and voila… step on through. How hard can it be?

* * *

Hard, is how hard it can be. Time travel frelling hurts!

For a moment she thinks all it has done _is_ hurt. She steps through the hotel room door, out into the corridor, coughing through the twisting fire in her gut. Once the pain and dizziness passes, she stands up and looks around. The hotel looks just the same, maybe too much the same. She turns around to try go back into her room. And _that’s_ when she really knows this crazy adventure worked.

The key-card lock she has been using all week is gone, now it’s a traditional key operated deadlock, and she has no way back into the room. Looks like she’s doing this after all. Wow. Time travel, how fracking cool is that!

Charlie hefts her bag up onto her shoulder, checks her jar of sand is safe and sound in her pocket, and starts to make her way out of the hotel. Time to get back to US soil and go meet Jo Harvelle. Talk about a self-insert fix-it fic!

* * *

Getting back to the USA doesn’t take long, apparently buying a plane ticket in used and unmarked bills is a lot easier if it’s a first class ticket. The champagne is nice, and it helps her focus on not freaking the hell out the whole way. And the only minor hiccup is running into a techy Airport Security guy.

“Wow, is this the new macbook?”

“Umm, yeah, I ah, work for Apple!” Charlie improvises. “It’s a prototype though, so, like don’t say anything?” She winks at him and it works, thank Hermione!

Finding the Harvelles proves to be a lot more difficult than getting back to the States. The prophet dude was pretty caught up with Sam and Dean. He didn’t really bother fleshing out the girl’s backstories where they didn’t intersect with the Winchesters. And even what detail there is she apparently can’t trust, knowing that he edited details to make people more ‘sympathetic’ - and in the case of Jo and Ellen she has to wonder what exactly that could mean.

She was tempted to go even further back, because at least she knows around about where the Roadhouse used to stand. But she knows that Ash ends up in Heaven to meet Dean and Sam during their first apocalypse. And she couldn’t have spared _years_ to wait around to duck in and save the day at Carthage. So that leaves her here and now, but unsure where to next.

Charlie isn’t even sure how Sam and Dean got back in touch with Jo and Ellen before going to break into Crowley’s topside hideout. The book before that was never published, even online, and the one before that one was all about archangels and TV shows. Nothing about Jo or Ellen since they tussled with War all the way back in Good God, Y'All. Not a lot to go on other than fan-specs and meta - which she can’t really trust.

Charlie kind of wishes she’d asked a few of these questions to the protagonists themselves when she last had the chance. She’d been afraid that her fangirling might be even more obvious though, that and she didn’t want to have to explain her unhealthy obsession with [Jo/OFC](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4991401) and Jo/Bela femslash. She is also pretty sure that she isn’t woman enough to explain Destiel to Dean Winchester, no matter how often she wants to or how many fangirls would come visit her grave if he killed her for it. So she’d always left it at a few hints, and hoped that was enough. It wasn’t.

She guesses, as do the fans, that Jo and Ellen were still in touch with Bobby. But Charlie isn’t sure that being accidentally beaten up by someone’s ghost counts as meeting them or crossing timelines - but she figures it isn’t worth the risk.

In the end Charlie falls back on what she does best. Hacking. Jo and Ellen might be good with shotguns and ghosts, but they aren’t very good at living under the radar. If this works she’s going to have to have a long talk with those girls about their electronic fingerprints. And how to fake Social Security Numbers. It’s even easier back here, because so many exploits long fixed are still undiscovered. Let’s just say that Java always was a bad idea.

In the end she tracks them down because Jo is working in a bar called The Garden in the even more hilariously named Humansville, Missouri. She's using her real Social, and that's all the lead Cahrlie needs.

The bar is nice, without being swanky. Dark wood and chrome fixtures, tall tables and a forest fruit themed cocktail menu. They serve hot apple cider. The whole place smells like apple pie.

She knows it’s Jo the moment she lays eyes on her. Blonde hair and eyes full of chocolate fire. Not quite like she imagined but close, really close. And devastating sexy.

Jo walks up to the counter and asks Charlie what she’s ordering. Charlie’s brain goes blank. She isn’t ordering anything, it’s 2 o’clock in the afternoon on a Wednesday. Charlie may hang out with the Winchesters but she doesn’t drink like them. She’s here to save Jo. She’s here to help. But how does she say that without getting herself booted back to the future faster than you can say Michael J Fox? Or at the very least booted out of this bar.

She’s been in the past for just over a week, she has almost two weeks until Carthage. That’s going to have to be enough.

“Hey Jo. Would you accept ‘Come with me if you want to live’ as an answer to that question?”

Jo’s eyes narrow. “What are you?” she asks. Charlie notices how her stance changes, defensive. She knows this isn’t some stupid patron’s idea of a pick-up line. She’s good. Even better than the books suggested. She’s got this innate grace, a sense for danger, and a fire in her that makes Charlie’s heart hurt when she looks at her.

“I’m human,” Charlie says, puts her hands in the air to show they’re empty. “I’m human and I’m here to help.”

“Why’d you come to me?” Jo keeps her voice low and even, smiles like they’re talking about the drinks menu. The one or two businessmen dawdling over late lunches aren’t going to notice a thing. Jo’s hand makes its way under the countertop and Charlie just knows she’s got some kind of knife, silver or pure iron probably. Hot damn she's good.

“I know a thing or two,” Charlie says.

“You a witch?”

“No,” Charlie says, because she’s not but then, “not really.”

Because she came here by frelling magic, didn’t she. The lines were clearer back here than they are in Charlie's time. Demon bad, hunter good. Magic was for witches. It was almost simple.

Jo watches her for a few more moments then grabs three shot glasses from the glass rack and lines them up in front of Charlie. She fills each from a different bottle. And Charlie’s never seen the Winchesters do a three liquid test. She wants to ask what they all are but that defeats the purpose, and might undermine her credibility with Jo. She needs Jo to trust her. Needs Jo and Ellen to trust her enough to let her save them when the time comes.

Charlie drinks all three. One's water, probably holy water. One is clear but tastes metallic. The other she hesitates over, it’s dark gold and has some kind of green powder floating in it.

“Thought you said you’re not a witch?” Jo says through her smile.

“I don’t think I am,” Charlie says. But is she? Well no time like now to find out. She slugs the shot. It tastes like cherry which is odd. It’s not half bad actually.

“There,” Charlie says. “Now can we talk business?”

“Not here,” Jo says. “We’ve got demon activity. How’s your Latin, Red?”

“It’s Charlie, and my Latin’s pretty good.”

Jo nods. “Can this wait until tonight?”

“Sure.” It was gonna have to, wasn’t it.

* * *

It turns out Ellen actually knows when to trust her daughter’s instincts. She has a few extra questions for Charlie, but when Charlie passes them Ellen is grudgingly in. These women ran the Roadhouse for years. They’re used to vetting and working with new people. Maybe not putting their lives in their hands, but backup is backup - right?

Charlie lies and tells them she met Ash at MIT. She knows enough from the books to make it a convincing acquaintanceship. She really wants to tell them everything but she has a plan and she’s sticking with it. She doesn’t want to risk being thrust back into the future without at least trying to fix this mess.

Charlie does her first real exorcism in an old house in North Humansville (still funny). Turns out demons are just as pants wettingly scary as Leviathans. Awesome. Also turns out that Charlie saw worse in Oz and has totally got this. Go Charlie!

Also, Jo is kind of awesome. Like, genuinely awesome. Charlie’s little fantasy crush just got a lot more real. There’s something about watching a girl swing a machete like that which just gets her going - who knew! She’s not sure if it’s a danger-kink or a competence-kink or what. Maybe it’s just a Jo Harvelle kink. Whatever it is, Charlie’s got it bad. Great. That was not in the plan. Well, not really.

Jo grabs her whole arm to shake her hand, pats her on the back harder than expected, and grins at her when it’s over. She’s got a smudge of grease on her face and a strand of hair falling out of her ponytail. Charlie resists the urge to sweep the lock of hair back and clean off the smudge. The dishevelled look is kind of hot anyway.

Charlie wants to stay. She really does. But she can’t risk it. Not yet. She can’t risk the Harvelle’s telling Sam and Dean about her. Can’t risk them asking her to go with them to get the Colt back. She needed them to trust her, not need her.

So she leaves the next day. Tells them she’s got another job, makes up a lead on a situation she knows the Winchesters will deal with a few months later. It’ll check out if anyone goes looking. Even though Charlie will be nowhere near it.

Charlie is going to Carthage.

* * *

She arrives about the same time that she knows the Winchester contingent will but on the other side of town. Part of her wants to try stop Lucifer. But she knows the boys figure it out in the end. Stay on mission, Charlie. Stay on mission. Think of it like a single story video game, no side quests allowed. You can do this.

She waits it out in the back room of the old hardware store. Hopes this really is the only one in town.

Her heart breaks all over again when she hears Ellen’s voice.

“And Dean?” pause, where Charlie knows Dean looks back and thinks this is Ellen’s final words. Where Charlie knows how much this hurt them all. “Kick it in the ass.”

She waits a full minute. Waits until she hears Ellen talking to Jo. Waits until she knows they’re about to blow the bomb.

“Charlie?”

“Um, hey! About that come with me if you want to live stuff? Um, yeah that’d be now!”

“What are you doing?” Ellen demands when Charlie rushes over to their side.

“Saving you.” Charlie holds up the timer based detonation system she rigged up the day before. She wires it in as quickly as she can while the other two women stare at her like she’s a ghost. Which isn’t fair, she’s way less flickery and seethrough.

Someone is watching over them. Because Charlie gets an arm under each woman and smashes the sand in her spell jar just seconds before the blast hits.

They feel the heat of it at the same moment the pull of magic drags them through all of space and time, turns them inside out and right way in and dumps them five years in the future and a few hundred thousand miles through space.

They land in a hotel room in Tunisia, Jo’s blood spilling on the floor.

“What the fuck just happened?” Jo demands, weakly. Way too weakly.

“Less talk, more hospital!” Charlie says, and Ellen, Tolkien bless her, doesn’t argue.

* * *

“If I’m not back by the time they let you out, go back to the US and find Sam and Dean, okay?” Charlie says, with a smile she doesn’t mean. She’s already taken too large a detour. She saved the princess (and the queen if you keep with that analogy) but she’s got another dragon to slay yet. “I mean, I can’t risk telling them about you while you’re still in hospital in case it throws you back in time while you’re still injured. But it’ll be worth the risk if I don’t make it… um not that I won’t but, like, to be safe and um stuff…”

Jo squeezes Charlie’s hand and looks up at her from the hospital bed. Charlie stops talking. She looks pale, but alive. Ellen is almost as bad, as it turns out. Shaken and shocked, but alive.

“We’re really in 2015?” Ellen asks. “We really survived the apocalypse?”

She’s asked this before. But Charlie just offers another weak smile. “Yeah, yeah you are.”

She’s honestly almost as surprised as they are. When she was in it, doing it, living it - it was easier to understand. She didn’t have time to worry about it. Didn’t have time to think about it. Now, well she still doesn’t have time to think about it really. But here it is. Here _they_ are. All real and warm and alive. So much more than words on a page.

“You really can’t stay?” Jo asks. Charlie might be imagining the look in her eye, but it has promise to it.

“Yeah, sorry. It never stops, you know?”

“Oh, we know,” Ellen chuckles. Jo is still looking at Charlie, and still holding Charlie’s hand.

“I will come back,” Charlie promises. “I will help you guys settle back in. I’ve set up temporary ids, and you’ve got the cash and cards. You’ll be okay. But this book I’m after, it’s going to save Dean. You get it right?”

“Yeah, I think we do,” Jo says and exchanges a look and a shrug with her mom.

“I’m ah, just gonna get a coffee, you girls want anything?” Ellen says, getting up from the hard hospital chair.

“No, I’m good, thanks mom.”

Charlie just shakes her head, still finding it hard to take her eyes off Jo. Bandaged and pale in the hospital bed, but so very vital and alive despite it all.

There are a few long moments of silence where neither woman knows what to say. It’s Jo that breaks the silence.

“So are you and Dean, you know…” Jo waves her hand in a way that doesn’t really communicate anything but doesn’t need to.

Charlie feels her stomach drop, cold water poured on every suppressed daydream she’s had since she first imagined what Jo might look like and only trebled since she really met the woman. Of course. She’d thought the sexual tension seemed forced in the books, but it was probably just Edlund’s bad writing again. Great. Crushing on your friend’s straight girlfriend, good one Charlie. How much of a stereotype can you be.

“No, he’s um all yours. I think. I’m, you know, kinda gay!” Charlie shrugs it off like she always does then thinks of something. “Dean's single. Mostly. Though, there is the angel. I’m still not sure what’s up with that, to be honest. But yeah, angel - go figure.” Charlie may be rambling. It's been known to happen.

“Anna’s alive?” Jo asks, confused.

“Um, nope. Not Anna...” Charlie blushes, she can feel it. She’s never even met Castiel, but those Supernatural fangirls on tumblr really have some good points on that one. She’ll wait and see… but what about Jo? Maybe bringing her back to now wasn’t the best idea Charlie’s ever had. Who knows.

“I did kind of wonder about that, they do kind of stare, don’t they?” Jo asks and laughs, then coughs. And _keeps_ coughing. Shit.

“Oh frack, are you okay?” Charlie reaches for the water and Jo takes it but nods too.

“I’m fine,” Jo reassures her. “Hell at least I’m alive right?”

“Yeah,” Charlie grins back at her and means it. Because she _is_ alive. They all are. Because of Charlie. Damn, that feels good. She’s a big damn hero now, that’s for sure.

Jo smiles, real and open. It’s so beautiful it hurts.

“I don’t really care about any angels, you get that, right?” Jo says, looking up at Charlie like she wants her to understand something.

“Really?” And Charlie isn’t even sure what she’s confirming. They both know Charlie has more to do than this. More to try and fix, but… maybe?

Jo goddamn winks at her, then the door opens and Ellen walks back in with coffee and giving them both a suspicious look. It’s a start though. It’s a damn good start.

* * *

Charlie doesn't come back.

But she did leave a very magic book behind. Let's just say that Jo Harvelle doesn't leave her debts unpaid. 

**Author's Note:**

> I have a tumblr - [kittyaugust.tumblr.com/](http://kittyaugust.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Comments and kudos are love! I know this one feels a bit short, if there is real interest then I might do an expanded version for my SPN Rarepair Bang... TBC.


End file.
